Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

Living Room Still-Life: 1962

My mother, watching TV in our living room. Taken with a c.1935 Kodak Junior Six-16 we happened to have sitting around the house. At the time I was chafing at the restrictions of the simple cameras I'd been using, specifically the inability to do long exposures in low-light situations. In addition to the "T" time exposure setting, the Six-16, like many older cameras, also had a "B" (for "Bulb") setting for use with flash; the shutter would stay open for as long as you held the release button down. While it was down, you set off your flash bulb. View full size.

I have one of these cameras in my collection. I'm glad to see this photo -- since they don't make 616 film anymore, and I'm not all that excited about the idea of tracking down some 70mm film, cutting it, and winding it onto the spools I have, my Junior Six-16 will have to be content to sit on the shelf.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.